Cards From Julie

Julie of A Cracked Bat fame sent a mailer full of Ranger goodies my way a couple weeks ago. It came at a perfect time - my dissertation was getting the best of me and making me a cranky person. It was nice to receive cards as a pick-me-up!

Let's take a look at some of my favorites from the package, shall we?

This Frank Catalanotto Status diecut comes from 2002 Donruss Elite. To make it more interesting, this is a NSCC exclusive...

...numbered 5 of 5! Sweet! I always enjoyed watching Cat play. He was one of the few highlights in some pretty lean years.

A Topps Finest Rookies card of Mike Lamb. Gotta love that Finest feel!

A beautiful, shiny foil Upper Deck card of Mr. Ranger, Michael Young. There is nothing wrong with this card. It's perfect!

These three came together in a cello-like pack. Produced to bring awareness to the Disabled American Veterans (DAV) organization, this were distributed...somehow. I'm not certain if they came in a package of something or if they were given away at games...there just isn't much information out there about the set.

All of the cards share the same backside. These have immediately become some of my favorite cards.

Julie, I can't thank you enough! Thanks for thinking of me!

A Gift from Daniel

Last month, Daniel of It's Like Having My Own Card Shop and I made a deal to fill in a few set needs for each other. I was late sending my end of the trade his way, so I wanted to make up for it by including something for one of his collections.

Last week, I received another package from Daniel as a thanks for the card I sent him. I wasn't expecting anything, certainly not anything this awesome!

First up was this purple refractor from the 2012 Topps Chrome set. The 2012 set gets a lot of flack from collectors, but I loved it!

Next up is this Yu Darvish blue parallel from 2013 Topps Museum Collection! My scanner stinks and didn't do a great job of picking up the numbering, but this guy is numbered 1 of 99!

This may have been the biggest shock. Again from 2012, this is the platinum parallel from the Topps Mini set!

And it's numbered 2 of 5! Sweet!

Daniel also included a handful of other cards, but naturally, I put them away before thinking to scan them.

Thanks again, Daniel! I truly appreciate it!

I Got Zapped!

I feel like this title has been used many, many times before I put it up there. As I am certain everyone knows, getting "zapped" means that you received a crazy good package from one Mr. Zippy Zappy. Before the holiday, I was zapped for the first time.

A while back, I pulled a rainbow variation of Luis Torrens' 2017 Topps Update card. I finally got it in the mail to Zippy earlier this month. I had no expectation of anything in return - I was happy to help out a Torrens collector.

But Mr. Zappy would have none of that.

I received several repacks - all of them amazing! Let's have a look at the highlight of each pack.

For the record, these came from the same pack and I couldn't decide which I liked better, so I chose to share both. I'm really starting to fall in love with non-Topps minor league cards. The Alfaro is a 2013 South Atlantic League All Star card. Love it! I also love these Gallery of Greats inserts and did not have the Beltre, so this was a welcome addition! 

You can never go wrong with a Pudge card. I haven't bought much Bowman this year, so this was definitely on my list. I love old school Upper Deck, mainly because the photography was great. Here, we see Kenny Rogers catching the pigskin. I'm certain Nolan Ryan threw it a year before. (See what I did there?!)

Zippy even included an auto! This one comes from 2013 Panini Prizm Perennial Draft Picks and features Alex "Chi Chi" Gonzalez. Chi Chi was cut and re-signed with the Rangers earlier this offseason. He's a first round pick, so hopefully he can put something together. The Bell hails from the 1983 Topps All-Star Set Collector's Edition, the first of it's kind in my collection.

Lastly, we finish up with a Sega CardGen card of Michael Young. This, too, is a first for my collection. I've been wanting one for a really long time (I've had a Matt Harrison Sega card in my eBay watchlist for a year or more).

I was unaware that these were Topps products. It's cool to see everything written in Japanese!

Zippy, thank you for the cards! They are truly appreciated!

Fuji, My Man!!!

Back in September, I pulled a Clayton Kershaw relic from '17 Heritage High Number. Fuji, the blogosphere's resident wise man, left a comment saying he would be happy to relieve me of the Kersh. I was happy to send it his way. 

Fast forward a month or so. I received a bubble mailer from way out west from one Mr. Fuji. I was not prepared for the awesomeness that was inside.

First, a disclaimer: in my haste, I failed to scan all of the cards - I only scanned those that needed images on the Trading Card Database (more on this in a later post). However, these cards were awesome and I'm happy to share them!

First up:

A sweet Tier One relic from Michael Young! I really love Tier One. I've always wanted to purchase a box to see what kind of luck I would have with it, but I just can't bring myself to pay that much. So when someone sends me a Tier One relic, it goes without saying that I get a little excited!

The second card I scanned was even better, if you can believe that:

Michael Young auto from UD Ovation Spotlight Signatures! What? An auto! Fuji, you really outdid yourself! I was and still am at a loss for words on this package.

As I mentioned, there was even more in the package, I was just a dope and forgot to scan all of them. Fuji, I really can't thank you enough! I'm on the hunt for cards to send in a return package!